Birthday challenges

An unsung industry hit by the recession, at least in the West, is that of suburban moms who had given up high-flying corporate careers to bake birthday cakes for their babas and babies — and then decided to crow about this through a variety of blogs, articles and what I can only think of calling kid-lit. Industry? Because, as writers of all such pieces will tell you, raising kids is an industry, isn’t it? And one best not looked at through the prism of “modern feminism”. But back to the point, just as “chick-lit” and the lifestyle it implied (fat bankers, Cosmopolitan swirling, high-maintenance wives and girlfriends, and not a day’s honest labour) has gone distinctly out of fashion, so has “kid-lit”. When your household budget has dipped, will you worry about a cake rising? And would any one bother reading about it? But not having a publisher doesn’t mean that we can’t produce and consume our own kid-lit. So here it goes:

My niece, just under three, studying in a play school in Atlanta, is quite a toughie when it comes to taking sartorial decisions. She does not wear frocks, is strictly into jeans and tees, and knows every morning precisely which piece of garment she wants to wear to school. Her mother was reduced to tears recently trying to hunt for a particular shirt until the elusive garment showed up in an offending laundry basket.

My daughter, almost four, is more amicable and more susceptible to flattery. She spends a good hour in the morning sipping milk and preens in front of the mirror in her pink, flexible shoes. But she is more easily convinced about what to wear provided daddy convinces her, because, of course, adult, male opinion counts.

Obviously, both the girls are only products of their times. Try as hard as I can, and never mind the downturn, I can never really spot a badly dressed tot. Jenny, my daughter’s five-year-old friend, is the colony’s style diva: Impeccably turned out in her pinned up curls, shoes with lights and even a branded (expensive) Dora backpack containing everything from crayons to lollipops (that she can magnanimously hand out to peers, establishing, no doubt, popularity).

I don’t really know how competitive kids that age are — yet. But I do know now how competitive moms can be. Your child only has to get invited to a birthday party for you to find that out. When mydaughter was invited to Jenny’s birthday party a couple of weeks ago, I rushed in my work clothes to drop her off. The venue was the little girl’s home in our condominium and since I hadn’t been invited, I didn’t think about dolling up. Of course, I was wrong. The dress code for moms was strictly glam that day. Jenny’s was turned out in glittery eyeshadow. I mean, I don’t even use it to a nightclub.

It’s alright if moms want to impress each other instead of setting anorexic ideals for their kids. But there are other ambitious ones who want their kids to pick up “talent”. At another birthday party — a more modest one — talk amongst mothers who stayed back (dressed in salwar kameezes, in this case) for cake, revolved around whether their three- or four-year- olds were learning jazz/salsa/ballet. It seems half the world’s kids are. The others are laggers. The third type of mothers are the coolest by far: They throw birthday parties for their kiddies, sure, but take no notice of the tots, having called all their adult friends too. At yet another birthday party — yes, these are an intrinsic part of my social life now — host-mom in a halter neck blouse declared, conspiratorially, “We’ll put all the kids in the room downstairs and turn on Cartoon Network”.

The adults, meanwhile, were to have the real party. No, there was no Barbie-shaped cake at all, only a free-flowing liquid diet. Happy birthday, hic!

(anoothi.vishal@bsmail.in)